My second contribution, the Special Hobby Vultee Vengeance in its target tug version.
The plastic parts parts are relatively simple and they're nicely moulded although the detail is soft and the level is quite muted. Everything on a single sprue.
A fair bit of resin, including a cockpit pit. Two vac formed canopies provided.
Nice transfer sheet.

Mirage F.1C/C-200 Armée de l'Air'
1:72 Special Hobby
The Dassault Mirage F.1 has been a successful point defence fighter for over forty years. Originally developed as a private venture by Dassault to replace the ageing Mirage III, it is a single-engined, single-seat fighter aircraft with a high-mounted wing and the ability to reach mach 2.2 in short order. Power is provided by a single SNECMA Atar turbojet providing about 15,000 lbf of thrust. The Armée de l'air operated various versions over the years, with deliveries beginning in 1974 and the last aircraft retiring in 2014. The aircraft was also an export success for Dassault, with foreign operators including Ecuador, Greece, Morocco, South Africa, Spain and Libya. The F.1C-200 featured a fix air-to-air refuelling probe.
This is the latest iteration of a well-regarded kit from Special Hobby which first saw the light of day three years ago. The parts are crisp with engraved panel lines that are probably on the deep side, but still acceptable. At least they won't disappear under a coat of paint. The kit is spread across six grey sprues and a single clear sprue. Decals are by Cartograf and the instructions are printed in full colour. So far, so good.
Construction starts conventionally enough in the cockpit area. The cockpit is of conventional tub construction, with a multi-part instrument panel and coaming and detailed rear bulkhead. The control column is added as this stage, but not the ejection seat. For some reason step 3 in the instructions has you placing the cockpit inside the fuselage and closing it up, while step 4 has you adding the front wheel well and exhaust into the fuselage. I would say that it's best to reverse these steps. On the subject of the exhaust, it is a three part sub-assembly and the quality of moulding and detail is very good. Once the exhaust, front wheel bay, and cockpit are in the main fuselage can indeed be closed up.
Once the main fuselage is together the correct nose can be added for your chose decal option. If you are building the C-200 variant, the IFR probe in moulded in place on the starboard side of the nose cone. Various nose antenna are added along with the front air brakes which are moulded in the closed position. The single-part engine intakes are also added at this stage. Next the main wings are added. These locate via tabs in the wing roots and are of conventional upper/lower construction. Once these are on the vertical and horizontal tails can be added, as well as the ventral strakes. The landing gear - or at least the main gear legs - of the F.1 always remind me of the units for the Sepecat Jaguar. The undercarriage is quite detailed but has been moulded to be in as few parts as possible. The main legs along with their retraction struts are one part, with only a single small section needed for each of the mains. The wheels are one part each and have nice relief for painting.
With the bulk of the airframe complete, construction returns to the ejection seat. For the scale this is quite detailed, with four parts making up the seat. Apart from adding the canopy, all that remains to do now is add the pylons and your choice of ordnance. The instructions show which should be added for each decal option, but in total you get:
2 x Matra Magic Mk.I/II AAM
2 x V-3 Kukri AAM
2 x Matra Super 530F MRAAM
2 x GBU-16 LGB
1x ASTAC reconnaissance pod
1x RAPHAEL SLAR reconnaissance pod
1x RP35 reconnaissance pod
1x ARAL 1B Phimat
1x ARAB 9A Barrax
2 x RP35 Fuel Tanks
If bonus marks are awarded for generosity in the field of ordnance provision, the Special Hobby get a hat full.
A generous four decal schemes are provided on the Cartograf sheet:
Mirage F.1C c/n 46. 12-YE, Escadron de Chasse EC 1/12 Cambréses, Base Aérienne BA103 Cambrai Épinoy. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium, with tiger strips painted on the tail for the 1979 Tiger Meet;
Mirage F.1C c/n 84. 12-ZF, Escadron de Chasse EC 2/12 Cornouaille, Base Aérienne BA103 Cambrai Épinoy. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium;
Mirage F.1C-200 c/n 206. 5-OA, Escadron de Chasse EC 2/5 Ile-de-France, Base Aérienne BA115 Orange Caritat, France 1981. This aircraft is finished in blue-grey over aluminium, with a fleur-de-lys emblem on the vertical tail; and
Mirage F.1C-200 c/n 201. 30-LA, Escadron de Chasse EC 4/30 Vexin, Base Aérienne BA188 based at Ambouli International Airport, Djibouti City, Djibouti, Africa, May 1994. This aircraft is finished in sand/brown/chocolate over aluminium;
Conclusion
Special Hobby has the F.1 market pretty much sewn up now, and with each new release we got the ability to build more and more variants. The mouldings are crisp and well-made and the overall package is very complete, particularly given the amount of ordnance and the generosity of four decal scheme. Overall, this is a nice kit an can be highly recommended.
Review sample courtesy of

Hi all
With work on the house going on a pace , I have not had much time for modelling unfortunately. However whilst waiting for the electrician to attend I have had to stop until he has completed his work so I have had some rare modelling time, so I made the most of it. I have made a start and progressed this little beauty, as well as doing some of my 32 Spitfire build also.
I bought this some time ago and it will hopefully sit well with the Sea Fury T20 and Airspeed Oxford T2 I have already built.
It is a nice Kit, although being a short run Kit some preparations are needed along the way for fit in later stages. The Kit has a combination of Injection moulded plastic, some resin parts and some Photo etched parts.
Box shot
The resin cockpit parts really do look nice under a coat of paint
A Test fit revealed work was needed o the wing to fuselage joint at the front end to get it to sit right and all the mating surfaces were flatted to ensure as good a joint as possible.
Resin cockpit pieces assembled wand glued in place, fitting was checked regularly and all went in fairly well, although the resin seemed to be resistant to CA at first.
I have got a bit of a gap along the top of the rear cockpit area but I did not have enough hands at the time !!!
Undercarriage bays in place, I thinned off the top of the bays until I daren't take any more off and then took a small amount off the bottom of the front cockpit floor lug and they now go together well.
That's it for now, I can't wait to get on with some ore now.
Thanks for looking
All the best
Chris

Dornier Do 27 'Civilian Service'
1:72 Special Hobby
The Dornier Do 27 is a Short Take-off/Landing aircraft fitted with a high wing and fixed landing gear. The aircraft was actually designed in Spain by the Dornier operation there to a Spanish Air Force requirement for a light utility aircraft. This aircraft - the Do 25 - was not selected for production, although the Do 27 design would later be manufactured in Spain by CASA as the CASA-127. The aircraft's excellent STOL performance ensured a lot of interest, however, and it was ordered by many armed forces. The aircraft was also the first aircraft to be mass produced in postwar Germany.
This is the second of three Do 27 kits released (so far) by Special Hobby. The first edition, with decals for German and Spanish military versions, was released last year, so this is still very much a new kit. Inside the box are five sprues of grey plastic and a single clear sprue. The moulds for this kit were manufactured from steel, and there are no signs of flash or other flaws on the parts. The kit look nicely detailed throughout, and surface details are fine and crisps.
Construction starts with the cabin. The modeller will have to select the version they are building at this stage, because the cabin layout varies according to the scheme chosen. The rear seats and bulkhead are added to the cabin floor along with the front seats, instrument panel and flying controls. Instruments themselves are represented by a small decal. The overall impression is of a cabinet that is well-detailed for the scale. Once the cabin is complete it can be added into the main fuselage halves. Next up the engine cowling and radiator have to be assembled and fitted to the front of the airframe. Again, there are three possible options, so make sure you select the parts appropriate for your chosen scheme. The same applies to the tail wheel, which must also be appropriate to the version being built.
Next up is the main wing and the rest of the flying surfaces. The wing is split horizontally, while the elevators are solid parts. The rudder is moulded separately, so can at least be finished in a deflected position, subject to a little plastic surgery. Next up is the fixed landing gear, which is pretty simple and therefore difficult to get wrong. A couple of small photo etched parts are included, mainly for the crew and passenger access footholds. Last up, the canopy and main cabin doors and glazing are added. The doors can be posed in the open position, allowing you to show off all of the interior detail if you are so inclined.
The decal sheet provides for three options:
Dornier Do 27B-2 D-ENTE, Tanzania 1958-59. This is the zebra striped example featured in the box artwork;
Dornier Do 27Q-5 HB-HKA. This is a Swiss aircraft painted in an all-over yellow scheme;
Dornier Do 27H-2 VH-EXA, Lutheran Mission Aviation Services, Madang, Papua New Guinea 1962-4. This aircraft is finished in white over green, with a black cheat line.
Conclusion
Special Hobby's Do 27 is a nice little kit. Construction looks straightforward and the model is surprisingly well detailed. If this sort of subject interests you, then this looks like a really well-executed kit that can be highly recommended.
Review sample courtesy of

I got this a couple of weeks ago and rashly dived straight in. I do like Fulmar's and have quite a few done and more than a few in the stash. Although criticised as being a bit slow and not terribly aerobatic, it was a very effective fleet defence fighter. Remember, it was never designed to dog fight against fighters but defend the fleet against long range bombers and reconnaissance aircraft as well as acting as a spotter for gunnery. It did had a long range and could stay in the air for a long time, as well as being a stable and effective gun platform. Fulmars shot down more enemy aircraft than any other FAA fighter so it wasn't a failure and certainly was a major factor in the success of the Malta convoys.
A nice set of well moulded sprues, although there is a little flash. Good cockpit and wheel well detail. There is a bit of paint on them already. I did say that I had dived straight in.
Nice nice instructions but in traditional SH manner some locations are a bit vague.
Clear sprue, a little bit of resin and some etch.
Good transfer sheet from Cartograf for four versions
I am going to do this version as it's a bit different.
Happy modelling to come hopefully. I have also got a masking set. I recall the time it took to mask my previous attempts.

My original plan was a couple of jet trainers but whilst perusing EBay came across the little Bestmann, a side by side trainer from the Luftwaffe. Turns out the Swiss had some interned ones which were painted up in their red/white neutrality markings, so I am going with that.
https://goo.gl/images/Q6Q3eZ

Miles M.14 Hawk III/ Magister Mk.I "Egyptian, Turkish and Thai"
Special Hobby 1:48
The Miles M.14 Magister was designed to meet the Air Ministry Specification T.40/36. Miles based the Magister on their existing Hawk Trainer. The Magister was a tandem open cockpit design with a low wing cantilever monoplane. The main structure was Spruce with a covering of plywood. The centre wing section was of constant section, having no dihedral. The outer sections had dihedral and tapered towards the tip. The undercarriage was fixed on the main and tail wheels. The main wheels could be covered by spats.
Production was started in 1937 and by the start of WWII over 700 Magisters were in RAF service. As well as the central flying school 16 elementary flying schools used the type. By the time production ended in 1941 1203 aircraft had been built. As well as these 100 were licence built in Turkey. As well as use by the RAF the aircraft were used primarily by The Irish Air Corps, The Egyptian Air Force, and The South African Air Force. Other users Were Thailand, Portugal, New Zealand, Malaya, Latvia, Estonia, Belgium, Canada and Australia. The Kit
The kit arrives in a standard open-ended box from Special Hobby. They must be trying to economise as the box is the old release Magister box with a cover glued on, so you can only open one end. The kit comes as two main sprues of grey plastic, one clear sprue, one vac formed clear part, one bag of resin parts; and two photo etched frets. Also there is one small sprue of a light grey plastic, this seems to be a harder plastic than the kit and this is used for the landing gear struts.
Shockingly construction starts with the cockpit! This area of the kit is highly detailed, most of which will be seen through the open cockpits. Many photoetched parts are added to the inside of the fuselage halves and to the resin cockpit floor. Resin seats attach to resin seat backs. Four part seat belts are provided for each seat, and the small rudder pedals are made up of four separate parts for each cockpit. Instrument panels are made by laminating the photoetched parts.
Once the cockpit has been completed the rest of the airframe does not take much work. The fuselage halves are joined and the engine section is joined and added. Following the the tailplanes are added along with the rudder. The aircraft in this boxing had different rudders so please chose the right one. Next the landing gear is added. The Egyptian machine has Spats while the other two options do not. The tail wheel is added along with the propellor and its boss. Some small parts of photoetch details are nearly the final parts added. The last stage is to add the blind flying hood (not used on the Egyptian Machine). This can be added in the lowered or up position using the appropriate parts. I am sure if not wanted it can be left off as I doubt they flew with it attached all of the time.
Photo-etch Two small frets of photo etched parts are supplied.These contain most of the parts for the cockpit, instrument panels and seat belts. Other parts are for the landing gear, small metal airframe parts; and attachments for the blind flying hood. Canopy
Small injection windscreens are provided for both cockpits. As well as this a vacform part is supplied which is the blind flying hood in the open position. The parts are clear and well formed. Decals
Decals are provided for three aircraft.
Black 4/L-204 Light Training School, Egyptian Army Air Force, Almaza, Egypt 1938 (trainer Yellow).
White 2, Initial Flight Training Squadron, Turkish Air Force 1944 (Olive Green/Light Blue.
Black 116, Royal Thai Air Force 1951/52 (overall Silver).
Decals are printed by Avi Print, look to be in register with good colour definition. Conclusion
The model is a typical shorter run multi-media kit we would expect from MPM. The plastic has some nice detail if sparse (but then the real aircraft did not have too much in this respect). The resin and photo etched parts are well made and will add interest to the open cockpits. Some thought has gone into its production with the harder plastic for the landing gear legs a nice touch. This would be a good level entry kit into the world of mixed/multi media kits. Overall highly recommended.
Review sample courtesy of

I know, bad joke, but it was one of the more amusing nicknames the Western press bestowed upon Saddam Hussein.....
Here's completion number two for the year, Special Hobby's Mirage F.1EQ/ED kit built as the Iraqi Exocet-toting Dark Sea Grey over White EQ-5 option. Paints are Humbrol throughout - 125 over 130 for the main colours. Aftermarket used was a Master turned brass pitot tube with CMK providing the Mk-10 ejector seat, Remora ECM pod and Sycomor decoy pod. Peewit provided the masks for the canopy although I had to raid my leftover Eduard masking sets so I could cover the landing and refueling lights. The Exocet is included in the kit and I suspect it's actually the Eduard Brassin item although Special Hobby don't mention that. Other small alterations have been done using Miguel Garcia's excellent "Iraqi Mirages in Combat" book as reference.
Now for the photos!
You can see that I used the Magic-1 AAMs - the Iraqis never received the -2, so ignore what the instructions say and use the ones without the notch in the tail. Another thing that SH didn't mention is that for the EQ-5 and 6, you don't use resin part 8 (which represents the attachment for aligning the gyroscope from an external device). For the EQ-2 and 4, you do.
The kit includes the intake for the elevator power control unit on the upper starboard rear fuselage - remove if building an EQ-2, otherwise keep for the EQ-4,5 and 6
This shows how deep the Exocet pylon is. The clearance must have been quite tight between the nose gear door and the nose of the missile during retraction and extension!
If you look very closely, you can see that I added a second drainage outlet on the port side behind of the existing one - this is correct for the EQ-4,5 and 6. The EQ-2 only had one per side.
CMK Martin Baker Mk-10:
Remora Pod:
Sycomor Pod:
Comments welcome!
Mike.

Hello everyone ... Im posting this for now, as I am still planning on joining in. That will be delayed to some degree due to a temporary loss of modeling space. Im hoping to be back at it in 3-4 weeks.
This kit was a gift from a fellow member who had seen a post by myself about wanting to build one. He decided due to the complexity of Special Hobby kits, it would be best to give it to an established modeler. Rather than a new builder who may be frustrated and turned away from the hobby. I give you the interesting and quirky looking B-18 Bolo.
Im still of two minds as to markings I would like to do this in. Originally I was planning on an early war Submarine hunter like this one.
The plane in the center of the formation is the same as this Plane.
another example of an early war Bolo.
However doing research for this i found a few in Neutrality patrol markings, such as in this photo.
That is now starting to pique my interest. Here are the remainder of sprue shots.
Not a duplicate photo just a duplicate sprue.
The kit is the RCAF Digby version thus the British markings. I could still opt to do that as a markings option as well ? The kit has a small fret of etch and resin as well. This is all the decals collected to do any of the versions i am undecided on.
My plan is to move and rebuild my office asap, then get back to building.
Dennis

"Czech wars" is not over. After the surprise re-release announcement from the AZmodel 1/72nd SMB2 kit (http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?/topic/235011686-172-dassault-super-mystère-b2-smb2-by-azmodel-re-release-box-artschemessprues-release-december-2016/
Special Hobby is to release, in cooperation with Azur-FROMM, a new tool 1/72nd Dassault Super Mystère B2 (SMB2) kit - ref. SH?
Armements and fuel tanks will be included in the box. Different boxings will offer the opportunity to reproduce the original SMB2 as well as the Israeli re-engined variant.
Source: http://www.specialhobby.net/2016/11/super-mystere-172-pripravovany-model.html
CADs
Special Hobby, do you hear me, true scale modellers need a 1/48th SMB2 kit...
V.P.

The Royal Australian Navy operated Wirraway trainers from HMAS Albatross, Nowra from 1948 through the 1950's. This is the Special Hobby "First Blood over Rabaul" kit with the "Boring Old Silver" decal set from Red Roo Models. It's basically out of the box apart from scratch-built undercarriage doors (the originals being rather thick). This is my first completed model in well over a year.

I’ve not built a kit or posted to the forum for quite a while now, having been pre-occupied by work, study and associated activities. I decided to make amends over Christmas holidays and made a start on the latest of my Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm collection.
This time it’s a post-war Wirraway, most likely A20-168 (972) from HMAS Albatross as depicted in these Red Roo decals. There’s only a few photos I can find of RAN Wirraways online and markings and paint schemes are all different and ambiguous as to whether yellow training stripes on the rear fuselage and top wings were carried over from RAAF service, or over-painted with aluminium paint.
I’m using the Special Hobby 1/72 First Blood over Rabaul kit. It’s been going together quite well, albeit with the usual checking and fettling in order to get the parts to fit nicely.
I noted conflicting references about the cockpit interior colour and decided to go with a metal finish, rather than interior green.
All pictures I see of Wirraways on the ground show the elevators slightly dropped so I cut these in order to give depict this in the build. Otherwise, it’s pretty much out of the box.
The wing roots needed a fair bit of filling with plastic strip and putty and a moderate degree of fettling to sit properly around the wheel wells, and there was a bit of work tidying up the landing light recesses, but it’s looking very much like a Wirraway.
One issue I’m yet to resolve is mounting the engine cowling as it appears to have nothing to physically connect it to the fuselage. Perhaps the trick is to mount it first to the engine and then mount the engine onto the fuselage. No pressure yet as that and the engine will go on after I’ve painted the fuselage and wings.

This little F3F will be my entry for the Group Build but I still have to make a decision on which version to build, hence the ambiguity in the topic title. I think that the main external differences between the -2 and -3 are to do with the cowling shape, so once I have chosen the version I will amend the title and include the unit details. I haven't built a Special Hobby kit before but it looks to be a nice kit and includes resin and etch parts for some of the details.
Without further ado here are the obligatory box and content shots consisting of a small etch fret, a bag of resin parts, canopy, decal sheet and the plastic parts on a single sprue. All of that should make it a fun build.
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr

This Special Hobby boxing of the F3F-2 was the first of my weekend completions. It was built straight from the box with a couple of scratch details such as the aerial tensioning spring, though looking at that detail now it is probably a tad over scale, I must use a smaller shank drill to wrap the wire around next time.
Grumman F3F-2 Bu.No 0976
2-MF-7 USMC, VMF-2
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr
by John L, on Flickr